A group of Israeli troops have confessed that the regime's army commits crimes against Palestinian civilians, The Independent reported.

In their confessions the Israeli soldiers revealed that the army abducts, beat and torture Palestinian civilians, including children.

"The incidents in which Palestinian vehicles are stopped for no good reason, the windows smashed and the occupants beaten up for talking back - for saying, for example, they are on the way to hospital; the theft of tobacco from a Palestinian shopkeeper who is then beaten to a pulp when he complains; the throwing of stun grenades through the windows of mosques as people prayed. And worse," they are all criminal acts, the report said referring to confessions by Israeli soldiers.

The report cited various acts including violent abuse of Arabs by hardline Jewish settlers, harassment of civilians, beating Palestinians without provocation, looting homes and shops and opening fire on unarmed demonstrators as other examples of Israel's crimes against Palestinians.

In a separate incident, an Israeli lieutenant in the Kfir Brigade called Yaakov Gigi took five other soldiers with him to hijack a Palestinian taxi in al-Khalil and one of the soldiers wounded a Palestinian without any reason and then tried to lie his way out of the incident.

The Israeli military gave a 15-month jail sentence to the lieutenant but did not prosecute the soldier who had fired on the Palestinian while insisting that the event was a 'highly unusual' one.

This is while, the confessions by Israeli soldiers confirms that the incident is by no means exceptional.

A 22-year-old soldier, also in the Kfir Brigade, said in his interview that he was "many times" in groups that commandeered taxis, seated the driver in the back, and told him to direct them to places "where they hate the Jews" in order to "make a big mess".

"We were told to go over there and find out what was happening. Our [platoon] commander was a bit screwed in the head. So anyway, we would locate houses, and he'd tell us: 'OK, anyone you see armed with stones or whatever, I don't care what - shoot,'' the soldier recalled.

Did you hit them? "Sure, not just them. Anyone who came close ... Particularly legs and arms.

He also remembered another incident in which they used a 10-year-old boy to locate and punish a 15-year-old stone-thrower.

"The kid was really scared, realizing we were on to him. We had a commander with us who was a bit of a fanatic. We gave the boy over to this commander, and he really beat the shit out of him ... He showed him all kinds of holes in the ground along the way, asking him: 'Is it here you want to die? Or here?' The kid goes, 'No, no!'

"And the parents saw it. The commander ordered [the mother], 'Don't get any closer.' He cocked his weapon, already had a bullet inside. She was frightened. He put his weapon literally inside the kid's mouth. 'Anyone gets close, I kill him. Don't bug me. I kill. I have no mercy.' So the father ... got hold of the mother and said, 'Calm down, let them be, so they'll leave him alone.'"

"We were right next to this, but did nothing. We were indifferent, you know. OK. Only after the fact you start thinking. Not right away. We were doing such things every day ... It had become a habit..."

MSH/DT